In retrospect, the Occupy movement totally succeeded.

[HamPhan]

#jazzhandsupdon'tshoot

 

[SouthoftheAndes]

Who exactly are these people referring to when they curse the "top 1%?" They say that they're just cursing the "super-rich" but I'm going to tell you what they really mean. What they are really cursing is the number One. They hate One. What these people are actually cursing is monotheism, they are cursing Abraham, they are cursing Judeo-Christianity, they are cursing Islam, they are cursing Judaism, they are cursing Western civilization, they are cursing authority, they are cursing strength. This is paganism. They might not call it that, they might not even realize it, but they are nothing but a bunch of filthy booty shaking paganists.

People can be led astray to support self-destructive and or weak causes but in general (internally) people value strength. The end game is the inevitable triumph of the strong just as they triumph today and direct/lead as they currently have and will for all of eternity. With that said you are NUTS if you think that religion or that the Abrahamic religions are the pinnacle of 'strength', power let alone productive efficiency (which humans crave for). Plus Christianity and Islam are failed religions compared to the degree of insight and order that Judaism has promoted/been able to sustain itself.

Nevertheless I'd have to disagree with your outlook.


Occupy Wall Street made income inequality known which is a good thing but it sadly had many conspiracy theorist and radicals.

Banks are not evil nor is wall street something which needs to be 'destroyed'. Regulation can be good (to an extent) but the end game fact is that if we value cheap goods, big homes, food, pro sports, rap music, gambling, electrionic/gadgets and all that jazz we NEED wall street and banks in general.

 

[Bay Area]

I saw OWS as making fools of themselves as a result of their inability to articulate a goal or demonstrate significant organization for their protest. I also consider them as making fools of themselves because once the winter rolled around, OWS packed up and went somewhere warmer.

The issue was certainly important but I don't give OWS any credit for making the public aware of the issue. OWS piggybacked on the existing public sentiment and didn't go very far with it.

Lol you missed the entire purpose of the protest. Many disgruntled citizens were pissed off for different reasons. Occupy provided a platform for them to express their dissatisfaction with the wealth gap. The right to protest is a part of being an American. Saying that they made fools of themselves is ridiculous.

 

[HamPhan]

Lol you missed the entire purpose of the protest. Many disgruntled citizens were pissed off for different reasons. Occupy provided a platform for them to express their dissatisfaction with the wealth gap. The right to protest is a part of being an American. Saying that they made fools of themselves is ridiculous.

:icon_lol: Good one, good one. 9.5/10

 

[Jonesisinnocent]

Hatred of bankers, the mega-rich, corporations, etc is ridiculous. Why would you hate someone who has actually accomplished something? At least racists and misogynists make up justifiable reasons for why they hate other races and women. But to hate someone because they are successful? There's no rational justification for that. That's pure emotion, an ugly emotion I might add (envy). You cannot build down, you must build UP, upwards, higher. Rich people offer you nothing but opportunity. Poor people and the middle class do nothing but try to take it away for you. They are your thugs, gang members, police officers, TSA employees, prison guards, DMV employees, etc.

 

[panamaican]

Well that's just really your opinion and conjecture on your part.

The average citizen is very apolitical and generally doesn't know anything about politics.

They may have had a general sense of dissatisfaction and life being harder, but the OWS movement kind of crystallized their frustration and helped them find a target for their anger.

Your under-exaggerating the impact of OWS by painting it as some hippy BS with zero impact.

Simply by the raw number of different places it spawned, that is not true.

My opinion is bolstered by links showing that the subject was already being discussed.

You're claiming that the they inspired the general populace because some other fringe groups popped up somewhere else. It's hilarious that you're dismissing actual record of the issue being discussed because the populace is apolitical but then they suddenly became political thanks to OWS.

OWS didn't help the populace find a target for their anger. They had their target already.

Here's some links from the War Room discussing the very subject months before the OWS movement but after the economic crisis began. Note that these threads all have links to other sources discussing the issue.

http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/wealth-inequality-issue-1666713/
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/inequality-us-1183611/
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/gap-between-rich-poor-us-growing-708523/index34.html

The issue was already front and center before OWS jumped in. People were already upset that following the economic crisis, it seemed the middle class and the poor were getting screwed. Meanwhile, the rich were largely unscathed. Then the conversation switched to who was making the most money, the upper ends of the rich.

The whole thing gets worse when you try to assign OWS any credit for Bernie Sanders success when he was already quite popular and growing long before the OWS movement and for taking a stand on the same issues he's taking a stand on right now.

 

[panamaican]

Lol you missed the entire purpose of the protest. Many disgruntled citizens were pissed off for different reasons. Occupy provided a platform for them to express their dissatisfaction with the wealth gap. The right to protest is a part of being an American. Saying that they made fools of themselves is ridiculous.

I got the purpose of the protest. You missed why I said they made fools of themselves. Not for protesting but for a poorly organized protest with no clear direction that fizzled out when the weather turned cold.

As I said in other posts, they didn't even create the issue they protested on. It was already part of the national conversation, they jumped on that momentum and then fade out so quickly that it would have been sad if it hadn't been so predictable. We even mocked it here in the WR when it was happening - that they would be gone before the first snow. I don't know if that was accurate but it wasn't far off.

Now years later people want to pretend that it was some watershed moment that changed the direction of political talk. It wasn't.

 

[Hog-train]

My opinion is bolstered by links showing that the subject was already being discussed.

You're claiming that the they inspired the general populace because some other fringe groups popped up somewhere else. It's hilarious that you're dismissing actual record of the issue being discussed because the populace is apolitical but then they suddenly became political thanks to OWS.

You're talking apples and oranges here.

The links you sent were from the Huffington Post and Mother Jones- two websites dedicated to political topics.

We're talking the GENERAL, AVERAGE populace here.

You know- the one that gets all their news from small local TV stations and then they watch reality shows. The ones that contributed to the lowest voter turnout since WW2.

Here's some links from the War Room discussing the very subject months before the OWS movement but after the economic crisis began. Note that these threads all have links to other sources discussing the issue.

http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/wealth-inequality-issue-1666713/
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/inequality-us-1183611/
http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/gap-between-rich-poor-us-growing-708523/index34.html

Once again- we are talking about the AVERAGE person. The average person knows nothing about politics- nor do they care.

The War Room is the politics subsection of an MMA website - by it's very definition, there are political discussions happening here.-

That's NOT the average person. It's not even the average Sherdogger.

What OWS did was bring it to the mainstream news every single day. Everyone knew about it- particularly because in some areas of the country, it became violent.

I can tell you every single person in NYC (where I live) knew about it. It was on the local news EVERY single day.

And this was true in other places too. Particularly in some foreign countries where the protests got more massive than here.

 

[Diamond Jim]

The occupy message was legitimate. Corporate News brutalized them as bums who are looking handouts when they were protesting big bank getting the hand outs. Unfortunately for the message, a bunch of losers hijacked the movement and made the movement an easy target for ridicule.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

There was a time many many years ago that we put th middle class before the the richest Americans.

We did that for decades actually.


What also happened was when the rich made money everyone else's standard of living improved as well. It just wasn't CEOs make huge profits and nothing to the workers.

Everyone made more. It also created our successful middle class that we no longer have.

 

[KONG-D'SNT-TAP]

Didn't occupy Wall Street slso have a lot to do with tightening banking regulations so the banks couldn't do what they did before the 2008 financial crash.

people seemed to just want the banks to stop fucking with people's retirements and investments.

Also being in cahoots with the rating agencies doesn't benefit anyone either.

 

[Diamond Jim]

Hatred of bankers, the mega-rich, corporations, etc is ridiculous. Why would you hate someone who has actually accomplished something? At least racists and misogynists make up justifiable reasons for why they hate other races and women. But to hate someone because they are successful? There's no rational justification for that. That's pure emotion, an ugly emotion I might add (envy). You cannot build down, you must build UP, upwards, higher. Rich people offer you nothing but opportunity. Poor people and the middle class do nothing but try to take it away for you. They are your thugs, gang members, police officers, TSA employees, prison guards, DMV employees, etc.

Thug > Wall St. executives who recklessly gambled away the entire financial system.

 

[panamaican]

You're talking apples and oranges here.

The links you sent were from the Huffington Post and Mother Jones- two websites dedicated to political topics.

We're talking the GENERAL, AVERAGE populace here.

You know- the one that gets all their news from small local TV stations and then they watch reality shows. The ones that contributed to the lowest voter turnout since WW2.



Once again- we are talking about the AVERAGE person. The average person knows nothing about politics- nor do they care.

The War Room is the politics subsection of an MMA website - by it's very definition, there are political discussions happening here.-

That's NOT the average person. It's not even the average Sherdogger.

What OWS did was bring it to the mainstream news every single day. Everyone knew about it- particularly because in some areas of the country, it became violent.

I can tell you every single person in NYC (where I live) knew about it. It was on the local news EVERY single day.

And this was true in other places too. Particularly in some foreign countries where the protests got more massive than here.

We're not mixing apples and oranges, you just dislike that your apples aren't actually apples either. I showed that it was being discussed in the media prior to OWS. You dismiss that as not including the average person.

Then you point to other protests but there's no reason to believe they were comprised of the average, non-political person either. Your average, non-political person doesn't form/join protests Do you see the problem? You aren't picking from the general population to support your position.

Now, you're saying OWS brought it front and center. I linked the Sherdog links because those threads had links to other sites discussing the issue. It was already mainstream - that's how it ended up being discussed regularly here. If you want to credit OWS for contributing, okay. But they didn't make it a national story. It was already a national story as part of the fallout from the 2007 economic crisis. Do we forget all of the tax talk from those days?

Listen to yourself - you're claiming was national news because local NYC news covered an event in NYC everyday. It wasn't on my news everyday. It wasn't on my parents news every day. Unless you were politically inclined to begin with, it wasn't on anyone's news every day. It was on national news as an extension of the actual national story on the fallout from the crisis.

You're also ignoring the facts from Forkfoot's links earlier. Prior to OWS, the general populace had no idea about the extent of wealth inequality. But it was a big enough topic that a study was done to explore what the people knew. After OWS, the general populace still had no idea about the extent of the wealth inequality. That's pretty telling as to the impact of the movement. People were as ignorant after the movement as they were before it.

Now, if you have something that shows that the general populace, those average uninformed people, actually changed in some way after the protest, now's the time to present it. But pointing to other political groups acting on political information as evidence of the general public's opinion doesn't hold water. And when the OP tries to credit them for the political success of someone who was already a rising political star prior to the movement - it makes it very clear that this is revisionist history in all it's glory.

 

[Hog-train]

We're not mixing apples and oranges, you just dislike that your apples aren't actually apples either. I showed that it was being discussed in the media prior to OWS. You dismiss that as not including the average person.

No one said the topic wasn't being discussed or there weren't articles on it.

I personally discussed this in threads in the War Room prior to it.

What I'm saying is that it wasn't a hot button issue or on the minds of average everyday Americans.

It wasn't being played daily on mainstream network news - ABC, Fox, CBS during primetime.

After OWS happened, it was on the local news constantly.

Then you point to other protests but there's no reason to believe they were comprised of the average, non-political person either. Your average, non-political person doesn't form/join protests Do you see the problem? You aren't picking from the general population to support your position.

You're changing the goalposts of your argument.

We are not talking about who the PROTESTERS were.

We are talking about WHEN income inequality and the the other issues of OWS became a MAINSTREAM issue with AVERAGE, everyday people.

Those are two completely different things. Nice try though.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

OWS showed that people weren't going to go quietly into the night as their life savings and labour rights were being ripped out from under them.

It was an example of average people actually getting off their asses and doing *something* - Oscar winners were yelling about "no bankers went to jail!" and yet there was no mass protest, no public outcry that actually inconvinced anyone or scared the real power brokers in society until OWS came along.

There were expose's and conversations, sure, then that all exploded into a mass demonstration. Dismissing OWS as a "bunch of hippies" is just wrong and shows an utter contempt for actual real political action and hard work. People said the same kind of thing about Rosa Parks, sit down strikes, and all other manner of civil disobedience in the 60's, those people were on the wrong side of history.

 

[SouthoftheAndes]

Thug > Wall St. executives who recklessly gambled away the entire financial system.

Except Wall St Executives are NOT to blame for the entire Global Financial Crisis.

The average greedy idiot who is too greedy and naive to balance a check book and or intentionally LIVES BEYOND their means in order to keep up with the 'Joneses' is just as much to blame.

Why don't you actually read on what happened.

Here wikipedia can be a start for you and you can check out the external source/links for more info.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%9308

More people need to look themselves in the mirror and look at their greedy neighbors; in addition to looking towards their political leaders more than placing the ENTIRE blame on Wall Street and banks.

I've had it up to here with the bank conspiracy be thrown around so loosely since it helps undermine real issues and helps cause disorder by ruining good movements.

 

[Lead]

You could say the same with the tea party. Both parties are becoming far more polarized with little middle ground. Not a surprised we've had many years of gridlock.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Between the 1930's and the 1960's there was quite a bit of continuous protest and political action.

It took 30 years of peaceful protest to get the civil rights movement to the point where MLK was shouting "I have a dream!"

OWS is one piece of a larger puzzle. A good piece. One that should be respected.

 

[Diamond Jim]

Except Wall St Executives are NOT to blame for the entire Global Financial Crisis.

The average greedy idiot who is too greedy and naive to balance a check book and or intentionally LIVES BEYOND their means in order to keep up with the 'Joneses' is just as much to blame.

Why don't you actually read on what happened.

Here wikipedia can be a start for you and you can check out the external source/links for more info.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%9308

More people need to look themselves in the mirror and look at their greedy neighbors; in addition to looking towards their political leaders more than placing the ENTIRE blame on Wall Street and banks.

I've had it up to here with the bank conspiracy be thrown around so loosely since it helps undermine real issues and helps cause disorder by ruining good movements.

They were making fortunes in bundling home loans together and selling pieces off to investors to the point they were pushing lenders for more loans. The lenders started lowering standards for home loans for this very reason. The banks protected themselves from people defaulting by taking out default swap insurance. AIG, making unbelievable amount of cash on these fees, took on an enormous amount of this insurance.

When the bubble burst most of the interest rates skyrocketed forcing people default on their homes. AIG can't pay off all the swaps and they go under. All the banks they insure go under.

Do people who signed a teaser rate mortgage deserve some blame? I guess, but those banks were leading them out money on shitty credit standards cause everyone was making so much money.

 

[SouthoftheAndes]

They were making fortunes in bundling home loans together and selling pieces off to investors to the point they were pushing lenders for more loans. The lenders started lowering standards for home loans for this very reason. The banks protected themselves from people defaulting by taking out default swap insurance. AIG, making unbelievable amount of cash on these fees, took on an enormous amount of this insurance.

When the bubble burst most of the interest rates skyrocketed forcing people default on their homes. AIG can't pay off all the swaps and they go under. All the banks they insure go under.

Do people who signed a teaser rate mortgage deserve some blame? I guess, but those banks were leading them out money on shitty credit standards cause everyone was making so much money.

Are you an economist or in Finance by any chance? I am just asking because your explanation of the subject is too simple and gaunt. It lacks substance and 'meat' and ignores the human number one factor which is peoples personal greed/mis-allocations/stupidity/selfishness and everything else.

[YT]2f2kGHcdJYU[/YT]

Hate to use a fictional film. But this film was great in highlighting the wrong done by the Banks but also in highlighting the own personal greed. This quote sums it up perfectly.

The average citizen of the world who lives beyond their means and is greedy chasing more than they need or can afford is to blame (collectively they are more to blame) than the actions of a few 'elites'. At the end of the day the crisis would not have happened if people had some degree of self control. In addition you ignore that much of what was done is legal. It is no more illegal than a Casino operating, some people are addicted to living beyond their means and or are addicted to 'get rich quick' schemes. It is NOT illegal to sell people bad and or useless products it happens everyday when people to go Best Buy and or Radio Shack and by sh#t products/things they don't need.


So yes say this while people on this forum in the Mayberry are bragging about buying things they don't need on Credit and living beyond their means.